Archive for the ‘LD #19 – Discovery – 2010’ Category

Waaay back in December 2010, I cobbled together a horrific ten hour entry for LD19 – http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2010/12/20/germies/
It was garish, had horrific sound, and played a bit like a mule. However, there was an idea in there… a nice little variant on the usual Gems formula popularised by Bejeweled and co.

Several months later, and with Arcade Badgers now being incorporated and officially trading, I’ve released Germies! as a more commercial offering; albeit an ad-supported Mobile/Desktop Web version – http://germies.clay.io/
This time, we’ve got a leaderboard and some achievements added to the mix, as well as general clean-ups throughout.
I’m also working on a native JavaScript binder to get it released on more platforms – so the work’s not over yet!

We’ve only just released it as of yesterday, but it has been a chaotic journey to get here, and proof that if anything, Ludum Dare – and by extension One Game A Month – are incredibly useful for iterating over ideas!

Oh and yes, we will be taking part in the next Ludum Dare! Here’s hoping that anything interesting that we produce doesn’t take almost three years to come out again

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You are a crazy taxicab driver racing against the clock! You drive a traditional yellow taxicab. There are three lanes of traffic with other cars blocking your way and you must meet your deadline. Drive as fast as you can and swerve to avoid hitting the other cars… or even jump right over them!

For this game you will use your space bar and your arrow keys. The mouse is not used during the actual game play. Press the up arrow key to go faster. Press the down arrow key to slow down. Press the left and right arrow keys to change lanes. Use your space bar to jump.

Your objective is to cover the required distance, shown in meters near the upper left corner of the game screen, before the clock reaches zero. If you are successful in covering the required distance before the clock expires you immediately go on to the next level and repeat the same process. There are no breaks between levels. This is just one big continuous thrill ride. You just have to keep going! Each level gets more difficult because the traffic from the other cars increases as you progress through the levels. If, on any level, should you fail to cover the required distance and allow the clock to get all the way down to zero… it is game over!

There are three game options available. Each game option has its own separate control. The game sounds may be adjusted. The music volume may be adjusted. There is also an option to play the game in full screen. The full screen option may be turned on or off at any time.

Game Strategy: You must race as fast as you can in order to beat the clock. So, you will need to keep the up arrow pressed down for almost the entire game while using your left and right arrow keys and your space bar at the same time to avoid the other cars. You do not have to jump over every single car. In fact, you can usually save time if you can swerve around another car instead of jumping over it. Many times you will encounter a situation where there are three cars driving side by side, blocking all of the three lanes. Your only option here is to jump over one of these cars. However, if you do not approach these cars at a fast enough speed you will be unsuccessful with your jump and you will end up stuck behind this row of cars. The best thing you can do then is to use your down arrow key to slow up and put some distance between your cab and the other cars. Then, speed up and try again.

Our two person team, Surprised Manloves Ludum Dare because it’s the thing that actually got us making games instead of just talking about it. Since doing The Wager at the end of last year for LD19, we’ve been tinkering with it and working on our next projects. But we’re hoping to take a break from our current project this December to have another go for LD22, as long as any unforseen busy-ness doesn’t prevent us as can happen this time of year. So make that a tentative we’re in!

As for The Wager, we’ve had thousands of people play it which beats our initial estimate of ‘maybe twelve,’ and we got such cool feedback that we’ve been dipping in and out of it for the last few months and have finally released 1.2 (an improved version of 1.1, which itself was an improved version of the Ludam Dare Jam submission). It’s a Windows game, in case you’re wondering. Thanks for the LD people for making it happen.

I never did a post-mortem for my Ludum Dare #19 entry, called Introspect. So, instead, I finished the game, published it, and only six months later did I write a post mortem. Wow, am I lazy or what?

I wanted to share the news that my wimpy little Ludum Dare entry was brutally stripped to pieces and then slowly re-assembled over five months into a full featured game. It was released not too long ago on Kongregate.com and quickly shot to #3rd of the highest rated top new games! Just a week after release, it received badges and is now sporting nearly 200,000 plays! (It actually has 10x as many plays as that, but if you want to know why I don’t count those, then check out my blog post linked below.)

So for those who might want to hear some advice from someone who managed to turn a shoddy Ludum Dare entry into something playable and successful, I recommend you check out the entirety of my post below. I cover everything from the Ludum Dare version all the way up to the final released copy, and then some of the post-release problems I had.

I’ve done some more work on my Hieroglyph deciphering experiment. Added a new page between one and two where you take a look at the actual stone and go through some more steps before arriving at the obelisk puzzle. Plus various tweaks, both visual and functional.

At time of writing, an estimated 2000 people have played our game. That’s hardly setting the world on fire but considering that we were delighted when the count stood at 200, seeing that ten times over is… well, we’ve been grinning a lot. And this, our second game ever.

Over all comments have been very positive from nearly everyone, with some good criticism mixed in which is really helping with the update we’re looking to release as soon as we can. Then it’s onto the next project, in which we hope to resurrect our LD20 attempt in a very-much-changed form.

Most importantly, we may never have gotten around to actually making games instead of talking about it if it hadn’t been for the LD Jam, so I wanted to thank everyone that helped get that portion of the event going. I also want to put in a good word for the Jam, because I still think it tends to get lost behind the bluster of the main competition and I’d love to have the organisers think of some ways to give it a bit more love.